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Popular Youth Pastor Matt Pitt to Be Released From Jail in April; Witness Allegedly Lied About Officer Impersonation

Youth evangelist and founder of The Basement, Matt Pitt, 30.
Youth evangelist and founder of The Basement, Matt Pitt, 30. | (Photo: Facebook/Matt Pitt)

In what could turn into a redemptive comeback, popular youth pastor Matt Pitt of The Basement is expected to be released from jail in the next three weeks after serving time there for nearly eight months for allegedly impersonating a police officer.

Pitt, 30, who founded The Basement in Birmingham, Ala., one of America's largest Christian youth ministries, was sentenced to spend 10 months in jail in October after an Alabama judge revoked his probation for impersonating a police officer in 2012.

A CBS report explained that Pitt had his probation revoked after a man named Brandon Vessels testified that the youth minister had again identified himself as a police officer after an argument over a BB-gun in Jefferson County. Pitt's attorney said last Friday, however, that Vessels wasn't being completely truthful about what happened.

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"He did know who Matt Pitt was and, in fact, had been to a Basement event before," said attorney Brian Ritchie. "And [he] said some derogatory things about The Basement. So we believe there might have been a motive for why Mr. Vessels acted the way he did."

In the meantime, according to Blake Bolden, a personal friend of Pitt as well as a staffer at The Basement, the youth minister is expected to be released from jail by mid-April.

"Should be three weeks, the middle of April. That's what the judge has told us. Apparently, from what we understand by it, the date that they gave him they can't go back on," said Bolden, in an interview with The Christian Post Monday.

Reacting to the news of the new evidence in the case, Pitt's mother, Missy Pitt, said: "I just want the truth to come out. And we'll leave that up to the justice system to decide what to be done."

When asked how Pitt was doing in jail she commented, "Matt, he's doing great in there. He's leading people to the lord."

A tweet from Pitt's Twitter account Monday said: "Joseph was an inmate! He was falsely accused of rape & put in prison! But God was with him! Gen37:28"

Contact: leonardo.blair@christianpost.com Follow Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Follow Leonardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost

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